


Reflections of Fear

by tisfan



Series: Imagine Clint and Coulson prompts [12]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Ghosts, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Horror, Imagine Clint/Coulson Halloween Week, M/M, Mild Gore, Spooky, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-26 21:31:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12566632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Clint loves Haunted Houses.Phil... loves Clint.But when they go to the scariest house in the tri-state area, they might leave with a little more than they expected.





	Reflections of Fear

**Author's Note:**

> Clint/Phil go to a haunted house for giggles. Discover it is, actually, haunted.
> 
> For the Imagine Clint/Coulson blog's Halloween event!

Clint Barton did not believe in ghosts.

He didn’t believe in vampires, werewolves, or Bigfoot. He’d kinda given aliens a pass, just because the universe was really damn big and if he thought they were the only intelligent life forms in the whole thing, that was… pushing credibility. But he wasn’t sure they’d come to Earth, and if they did, they’d probably already gotten bored and left.

His boyfriend, Phil, did, in fact, believe in aliens and when Clint asked about it, he was told that was security level six material and he didn’t need to worry, everything was fine.

The problem with Phil Coulson’s deadpan humor is that Clint never knew if he was being serious or not. Of course, if there were aliens, SHIELD probably knew about them. There wasn’t much that Clint would put past that one-eyed son of a bitch, Fury.

That being said, Clint did believe in adrenaline. He believed in jumpscares and fun, and the excuse to wrap his arms around his boyfriend.

Haunted houses were awesome.

So when Halloween was upon them -- there was a lot that Clint liked about Halloween, which especially included 50% off candy day holiday, which was November first -- and there were a half-dozen haunted houses popping up around the city, Clint made it part of the spooktacular events to visit every single one.

“Another haunted house?” Phil sighed. He’d thrown himself into their overstuffed, ridiculously comfortable sofa that Clint had picked out, but that Phil had paid for because Phil was an adult who did things like put a share of his income aside to buy furniture and Clint was a human dumpster fire who impulse-bought seven seasons of MASH on Blu-Ray and then forgot he already owned it and bought it again the next month.

“It’s fun,” Clint said. He flopped on the sofa next to Phil and sprawled out until his legs were hiked over the arm and his head was pillowed on Phil’s thigh. “You love it.”

“I love _you_ ,” Phil corrected. “Okay, okay, but next month, we get to do one evening out at the symphony.”

Clint agreed; it wasn’t like he couldn’t turn down his ‘aids if the music was all squeaky and unpleasant. “I swear, I don’t understand why you’re the enemy of fun,” Clint said.

“Tell me about the haunted house,” Phil said, resigned. He shifted around a little until he had his legs out straight, his heel on the coffee table, legs crossed at the ankle. He stretched back, weaving his fingers together behind his neck.

The motion rucked up Phil’s carefully-ironed and professional shirt, revealing a strip of well-muscled abdomen, including that little V line over Phil’s hips -- Clint was sure that groove had some fancy medical name, but all Clint knew about it was it was one of the places he really liked to stick his tongue. Phil would arch up against him at the lighted touch. “God, you are hot,” Clint said, reaching over and tracing the line with one callused finger.

Phil pressed his hand over Clint’s wandering fingers. “Tell me about the haunted house before you get distracted.”

“I can multi-task.”

“No, you can’t.”

Clint snickered. “Okay, okay, it’s called the Halls of Thirteen Mirrors,” he said. Clint stretched his legs, getting his toes on the piece of paper from the end table.

“You are stupidly flexible. Also, that’s gross,” Phil said as Clint bent his leg all the way up, clutching the flier between his big toe and the next one over. He wasn’t as crazy bendy as some of the circus performers he’d worked with, and he’d probably never be able to shoot a bow with his feet the way he’d seen some woman do on a video on YouTube, but he was still pretty good with using his toes as an extra prehensile limb. It was useful when one was working really hard at becoming excessively lazy.

There was probably something wrong with that logic, but Clint wasn’t going to bother to figure it out.

Phil snagged the flier, kissed Clint’s knee and then patted his boyfriend into a less contortionistic shape to take a peek at the paper.

“Thirteen rooms of Terror!”

So, of course Phil was going to do the dramatic reading. “Zombie walk -- make it from one side of the maze to the other before being devoured by hordes of the living dead…” Phil scowled at the pamphlet. “A maze? Indoors?”

“The whole thing is set up in this old canning factory,” Clint told him. “There’s three stories of haunted rooms.”

Phil hummed in his throat, and then continued reading, “ _Vampire bar, SERVED, yourself!_ Seriously, Clint, who writes these ads?”

“ _Be here by dusk to meet your fate… bring your soul, don’t be late…_ ” Phil used his best Vincent Price voice for that. Which was to say, sounding more like one of those rubber-masked villains in the old _Scooby Doo_ cartoons than anything really scary. “What’s the cost of this thing?” He flipped the paper over several times.

Clint shrugged. “I dunno, doesn’t say. An’ they don’t have a website, I already looked.”

“Yeah, this sounds like a great idea,” Phil said. “Either it’s going to be stupidly expensive -- I mean, look at the list of stuff they supposedly have, that’s going to be a pricy admission ticket. Or it’s going to be boring. Teenagers with ugly masks from the dollar store and bowls full of jello with plastic worms inside.”

“So you can sleepwalk through it, and I’ll have fun,” Clint said, poking his boyfriend in the ribs.

“You’re going to owe me a night at the symphony and a blowjob for this,” Phil said, squirming and trying to dodge pokes, which wasn’t going very well for him, since Clint was laying on his legs.

“How about a blowjob at the symphony,” Clint suggested.

“If you get us on the permanently-banned list for another--”

Clint got his mouth on Phil’s stomach and whatever threats Phil was going to make were lost to the sudden inhalation and low-voiced moan.

***

The house’s schtick was a door prize; the entry tickets were a hundred and thirty dollars each (and don’t think Phil hadn’t said something snarky about that…) but for each room a thrill seeker managed to conquer, their wristband got a stamp on it. Each room successfully navigated netted a $10 refund. Thirteen stamps, and they’d refund the entire price of the ticket. Clint was already shoving at Phil while they were in the line, betting that he’d make it through the entire thing.

People were peeling out, even before they got to the house. Small signs at key spots in line warned: _Your Clothing May Get Damaged. (wash blood in cold water)_

_Please remove high heels._

_Medical conditions such as asthma, pregnancy, heart conditions, bad joints, and other symptoms may be exacerbated. Guests participate at own risk. Medical station available._

Clint had to admit, he was both intrigued and a little concerned before they even made it to the door. They made it to the door, got their wristbands, and started for the first room.

Clint had been to haunted houses™ before; his love for the macabre and cheesy movies and jumpscares was enough that he’d been up and down the east coast in his search for a good scare.

He’d even, as a SHIELD agent, been to a couple of places that were legitimately labeled as a house with ghosts (including one sticky mission that had ended up with him having to stage a raid on the Lalaurie House in New Orleans. The most haunted thing in there had been an eco-terrorist and a cage full of squirrels that had been used for cosmetic testing. Not, admittedly, that the genetically altered squirrels hadn’t been terrifying in their own right.

He’d been startled awake after watching a run of horror movies and not be able to move because he was worried that the monster was going to pounce on his foot (keep hands and toes on the bed and under the covers until we come to the end of your ride!) at any moment.

He could handle whatever special effects they threw at him.

The entryway was small. The claustrophobic feel was intensified by the fact that the ceiling had been artificially lowered. Their “guide” excused herself, shutting the door behind them. The front door swung open, and Clint could have sworn he caught a whiff of dust, like cracking open a room that had been unoccupied for years.

Cold air seeped into the entryway.

The lights weren’t strobing -- that was a cheap effect and Clint would have been prepared for that, the way it made the scenery jump and jerk -- but they flickered uncomfortably. Dimmed and then brightened to a flare before nearly going out.

For just a moment, it seemed like gravity was shifting and then Clint realized that someone had hooked the floor up to pneumatics, and one end was raising, pushing the floor at an angle so they were forced to go through the door before they fell.

Phil staggered into the room beyond the door, his hand going out and strong fingers looped around Clint’s wrist. Clint shot a look back over his shoulder; the floor was nearly at a fifteen degree angle before the door slammed shut -- untouched -- and locked them inside the first room.

“Well, that’s… encouraging,” Phil said.

Clint couldn’t help a grin. This was already better than the best haunted house he’d been to.

The first room, if it could be termed that, was some sort of sitting room. Dry ice smoke swirled around the floor, obscuring the corners. The lighting was irregular, flickering. Deep shadows hid alcoves on either side of them. Marble statues were placed at odd locations, one headless, another missing both arms from the elbows down. A third carried an enormous sword. The paintings in the room appeared to watch them as they stepped into the main floor.

Clint could have sworn the statues moved whenever he wasn’t looking directly at them, like those angels in Doctor Who. Except they were at such an angle that he couldn’t look at them all at the same time.

They reached the center of the room and the lights snapped off for a moment.

When they flared back up again, the armless statue was right in front of Clint’s face, mouth open in a sharp-toothed snarl, the stumps extended.

Clint yelped, started, and staggered a few steps back. Hit something solid and whirled. The headless statue pawed at him.

“Down!” Phil’s hand was in the small of his back, pushing him to his knees. The sword whistled overhead. It buried itself in a column just where Clint’s neck had been half a second ago. The warrior-statue tugged at the blade.

Little details. There was actual plaster dust on the ground from where the sword had penetrated. _What the fuck?_

The lights died again. Fuck fuck _fuck_.

A hand grabbed his ankle and it was all Clint could do, in that second, not to kick back and give the poor actress a mouthful of boot. He scrambled forward, felt the brush of someone’s dress.

The lights came back on. The statues were back on their podiums. Clint panted for breath, the grin hitting his face again. That was awesome--

The headless statue was holding its head. It hadn’t been, before. Holding the hair, as if displaying it. Blood dripped from the white, hacked off neck, pooling on the floor under it.

Clint stared.

The eyes opened on the head, the mouth wriggled and writhed into a leer.

“Happy Halloween!”

Clint’s heart was going a mile a minute as he backed away; where he was in the room letting him keep an eye on all the statues at the same time.

He and Phil came up against the door faster than he would have expected. He touched the doorknob and it was cold, bare skin against metal that had been in the freezer. He turned it, and it opened. They stumbled backward.

A man wearing a plain black tee with the word STAFF emblazoned on the front in white letters, nodded to them. “Enjoy the parlor?”

“Yeah, that was amazing,” Clint said. He held out his wrist and got stamped. Phil hadn’t let go of Clint’s wrist, and refused to, letting the staff member stamp his band with Clint’s hand dangling in his grasp like an errant toddler’s.

“Down the hall, last door on your left,” the staff member dictated.

***

“I am going to kill you,” Phil said. They were resting after the zombie maze. Phil was drenched in sweat. The Staff before the maze room told them that this was the room where most people lost it; primarily because if the zombies caught you, they tore your bracelet off and you were a zombie, and therefore, you were _done_.

The fact that Phil and Clint were both highly trained secret fucking agents might have been the only thing that saved them.

These weren’t slow, shambling actors, either, moaning brains.

They were fast motherfuckers, and after Clint finished catching his breath, he was going to admire the shit out of them for being able to run like that all fucking night long. And suggest that Phil get a list of the haunted house’s staff, because some of those guys should probably be considered potential agents.

It didn’t take long before Clint realized that part of their freaky ability was that there were all sorts of secret doors in the maze; zombies popped out at them from holes in the floor. Zombies dropped on them from over the sides of walls. Zombies disappeared from behind them and reappeared in front of them by virtue of getting to take a fucking shortcut.

Clint didn’t like to run (in his head he subscribed to the “only when chased” philosophy, even if that hadn’t been anything like remotely true as… any part of his life would attest to) but a lifetime of outrunning people who didn’t have his best interests in mind (his dad, barney, the swordsman, cops, the list… it was long) had honed his ability to run like no one’s business. And Phil, well, that idiot got up at sunrise a few days a week to go for a run.

The normal, regular, K-mart shopper types who Clint had seen in the line with them? Yeah, he could see running from scary motherfuckin’ zombies not being a life-skill they’d developed. Poor bastards.

“If you kill me,” Clint said, still doubled over, hands on his knees, panting for breath, “who’ll go through the rest of the haunted house with you?”

“Are you even kidding me?” Phil demanded. “I’d check out. Let them bury your corpse here, you could become part of the show. No one would suspect me.”

Clint managed a laugh. “Everyone would suspect you,” he pointed out. “You’re _dating_ me. There’s a running bet on how long before you throw me out the damn window of Fury’s office.”

Phil pretended to consider that. “What’re the odds and who’s currently heading up the pool?”

“I think Nat is, first time I forget your birthday,” Clint said.

Phil blinked at him. “When is my birthday?”

“No idea.”

***

Clint didn’t want to admit it, but the haunted house was starting to freak him out.

First off, there was always this undertone; even when they were running from zombies or being groped at by serial killer hockey-masked bastards… there was this sound.

Clint wasn’t used to making much of a big deal out of sound; sometimes his ‘aids picked up weird background noises and amplified them.

But he could swear, he heard crying.

Just the faintest bit, like someone was muffling it with a pillow over their head. Sobbing. Ragged and breathy, with the occasional sniffle.

All the time.

Through six rooms and up a flight of stairs.

He heard it.

Which would have been creepy enough on its own, except Phil didn’t hear it.

“What?” Phil’d asked, tipping his head like that would make the sound appear. “I don’t hear anyone… crying?”

Which made Clint wonder if everything was just in his head. If he was a little more scared and freaked out by this crazy haunted house than he’d wanted to believe. Certainly moreso than he wanted to cop to. Admit to Phil that he was actually scared, and he could look forward to being teased for the rest of the month, at least. And even if Phil _didn’t_ tease him, there was always that part of Clint that expected to be teased, mocked, made fun of, and the part of himself that was always, always braced for it. The teasing that sometimes came with heavy fists. _Baby, baby…_ it didn’t matter that Phil had never. Part of Clint was always going to be that kid that cowered away from Barney’s blows.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, except Clint could hear it in each room they’d been through; like who played a soundtrack over several floors, with different moods and settings in each room? That made no sense.

And then there was the smell.

He was a SHIELD agent, and before that he’d been a for-hire assassin. And before that, he’d been in the circus. And before that, he’d been a punching bag for his brother. The fucking point was, he knew what blood smelled like. Hot and rusty, like wet tools, left out on a summer’s day. It left a taste on the air like a mouthful of pennies.

Who the fuck _scented_ a goddamn haunted house? Did Yankee candle have a goddamn slaughterhouse scented candle? The zombies, too, had reeked.

Clint also unfortunately knew what rotten meat smelled like, thick with blowflies and swollen, spilled organ fluid.

None of it was overwhelming; that was probably a good thing or else the house would have been more Eau de Vomit than anything else. But still… it was pervasive.

Underlying.

_Lurking._

Almost like it was daring Clint to notice it. To say something. To give in to the collywobbles that were steadily growing inside his belly.

And then there was the _girl_.

He kept seeing her.

Like, she was in every room. The armless statue. One of the zombies. The face he barely glimpsed in a mirror. The vampire’s victim.

She was fucking _everywhere_.

_Following them._

With her too-dark eyes watching them, her skin pale and porcelain with dark veins underneath. Her mouth, thin-lipped with teeth that didn’t seem to fit her jaw. A trickle of blood from her temple. Hair that hadn’t known the touch of a brush, leaves and twigs tangled in it. Like a murder victim, left in a watery ditch somewhere.

_Stop it. You’re freakin’ out, Barton._

Finally, though, finally, they were at the last room.

The staff member opened the door and Clint took a step in.

Nothing. It was a big, empty room. With a door at the far end.

On the walls, there were hung antique mirrors, their glass spotted with black patina stains. Frames of silver, tarnished until the birds and animals molded to the sides looked more like skeletons.

And in each. Goddamn. Mirror. As they passed it. The girl.

 _That_ girl. She would make a face. Grimaced. Bared her teeth in a snarl. Ducked behind Clint. Put her hand on his goddamn shoulder.

And she _wasn’t fucking there_.

By the time they made it to the far door, Clint was clinging to Phil with all the strength in him. He was grateful that Phil hadn’t shaken him off; his fingers had to be numb from how tight Clint was squeezing him.

The door.

Clint reached for the knob.

It was cold as death.

And the girl.

She leaned at him, through the door like a fucking ghost, her face serene and lovely and all that was intangible. Leaned. Opened her mouth. And wailed, that same cry that he’d been hearing all night.

…. _blackness…_.

***

“Hey, there you are,” Phil said, leaning over him.

The air was warm, a little humid. He smelled the familiar, fake cherry-scent from the car air freshener that Clint used.

“Wha?”

“You fainted, Barton,” Phil said, using his handler voice.

“Aw, jump scare, no,” Clint murmured, covering his face with his hands.

“Nah,” Phil said. “It’s probably because you forgot to eat and then we ran around like a couple of terrified teenagers all night. Your blood sugar took a hit and you crashed.”

“Seriously, that was scary as hell,” Clint complained, then, “are you sure?”

“It didn’t seem all that terrifying to me,” Phil said. “But then, I’m not the one who caffeinated themselves into tachycardia and then doesn’t hydrate properly.”

“Asshole,” Clint muttered at his boyfriend. “How’d I get _out here_?”

“Your asshole boyfriend carried you out to the parking lot,” Phil said, giving Clint that raised eyebrow, deadpan, _I’m kinda awesome and you love it even when you hate it_ look.

“Well, that’s kinda hot,” Clint admitted. Maybe he could distract Phil with blowjobs. Lola could practically drive herself; a little roadhead wasn’t going to hurt anyone.

“Whatever you’re thinking, Clint,” Phil said, and then he stopped talking because Clint had already unbuckled his seatbelt and was going to town on Phil’s zipper.

***

Sex in the car was good.

Sex right inside the door of their apartment, with Phil lifting Clint up like he was a goddamn doll to fuck him up against the wall? Better.

Round two in the bedroom. Best.

***

Clint squeezed a pea-sized speck of toothpaste onto his brush and scrubbed at his mouth; be gone pizza breath, say hello minty-freshness.

He spat, rinsed, grabbed a hand towel and went to wipe his chin.

Looked in the mirror above the sink.

And she…

(the girl, the ghost, the fucking girl… with her white skin and dark veins, with her too-wide eyes and her too sharp smile…)

_… looked back at him._

 


End file.
